Sonder

 "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own."

-The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows

I first experienced sonder while walking on a street in Bhootnath. Anyone who has walked in the market must know the chaos as you briskly walk through the people, portable shops, cars, bikes, rickshaws, and autos on the road. I was holding hands with my father, as one does in order to not get lost in an Indian marketplace. 

That was the first time I experienced sonder. Everyone around me, the girl with the ice cream in her hand, that uncle in the  blue shirt, that shopkeeper, that didi, had a life as strange and intricate as I did. If not more, I was younger than most of them. I felt a chill down my spine.

I have experienced it many more times. You look around and realize that everyone is as special and unique as you. Sometimes, it feels as if time stops.

Today, I watched a documentary by the youtuber austinmcconnell, consisting of the various voicemails he got from strangers in one day after he made his phone number public. I felt it again, but digitally, for the very first time. It consists an eclectic view of the earth's people, from someone complaining about how banks work to someone telling how he's sitting in his backyard with his dog.

It had been a very long time since I had experienced sonder, or been surrounded by a large number of people, a condition in which I usually experienced it, y'know, because of the pandemic.

It was an emotional and mental treat. Thank you, sonder.